The Environment Agency has been successfully prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after one of its employees drowned whilst dredging an icy watercourse in Cambridgeshire.
Simon Wenn was operating a crawler crane rigged as a dragline to dredge sediment from the bed of a watercourse on 8 December 2010. However, the water was frosty as was the river bank on which the crane was positioned. Timber tracking mats were therefore laid to provide better grip and stability.
Mr Wenn used the crane to move a tracking mat from behind, intending to swing it in front of him. But as it rotated round and through the water, the crane started to slowly slip towards it and then tipped into the watercourse, where Mr Wenn became trapped by the crane's cab. Despite emergency service efforts to save him, the crane and Mr Wenn continued to sink.
A HSE investigation found that the crane had been fitted with a 19 metre boom that exceeded the manufacturer's specification; they recommended that the boom was a maximum of 16 metres when used as a dragline.
The Environment Agency was also found to have made inadequate assessments of the technical requirements at the site and of the impact of the cold weather. In addition, Mr Wenn was trained as a dragline operator but had no experience of using a crawler crane for lifting operations.
The Environment Agency was fined £200,000 with costs of £28,548 after admitting to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
HSE inspector Stephen Faulkner said, "Simon Wenn's tragic death could have been prevented had more thought and rigour been given to planning the dredging work, in order to minimise the risk arising from the use of the dragline to maintain this watercourse."
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